


The Fourth Shot

by Roxy206



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28307409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roxy206/pseuds/Roxy206
Summary: At night he haunted her when there was no where else to run.She would torture herself with the memory of him just to feel alive.Set post-season 2. Prompt from Serpents in the Garden on fanfiction dot net: Beth goes to the storage unit & takes home one of Rio's shirts; Rio sees her sleeping with it.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Kudos: 50





	The Fourth Shot

Lung. Spleen. Shoulder. 

The words played over in his head as he rolled a bullet between two fingers. There wasn't much else to do cooped up in a hotel room. 

Lung. Spleen. Shoulder. 

A laugh bubbled up; no blood this time. Her aim was shit, he thought. Good thing for him. Not so good for her. 

+++ 

Beth had pried the clothes off of her body, tossing her slippers in the bathroom bin. The soles were fine for running out to the car, but not for the long walk she had made in them, her feet on autopilot as her brain shut down. 

She'd shot him. She'd shot him three times. 

Her ears rang, whether from the sound of the gunshots or the shock she wasn't sure. 

The water was scalding as she stepped into the shower, but her body barely registered it. She went through the motions, trusting her muscle memory to get herself clean. 

When the water turned cold, freezing cold, she let herself slide down to the floor. The temperature shocked her back into the present & her chest heaved as she began to sob. 

She'd killed someone. She gasped for breath, her vision blurring. She'd killed him. 

+++ 

Everything was still there. 

She had taken the first opportunity that presented itself to sneak away to the storage units. She had no idea who knew about this. She had no idea who knew he was dead. Frankly, she had no idea what she was doing there, but it seemed like one of the few places she could go. 

She didn't feel like she could stay at home where Dean was making himself comfortable again. It was her fault, she knew that. She had to stop turning to him, but old habits die hard. She didn't want him - in her house, in her life. Yet the second she felt like the ground was falling from beneath her, she ran to him. He held her & she clung to the delusion that it would all be alright somehow. 

It was all she had known for so long. She made safe choices, careful & calculated. At first she didn’t realize that she was seeking stability over everything else, that she was sacrificing anything. At some point, even once she was aware that things were lacking in her marriage & her life, she figured it was easier to stay the course. 

Aimlessly she walked from one unit to another taking in the contents. She found herself in the unit where his wardrobe resided, a hand running along his clothing. It still hadn't hit her that he was gone. She kept expecting to turn a corner & see him there, ready to demand something of her, making her life anything but predictable. 

She picked up one of his sweaters. He wouldn't miss it, she thought. 

+++

She woke up in a cold sweat. She'd lost count of how many nights it was now. Too many. Ears ringing, heart racing, bile rising in her throat. 

At night he haunted her when there was no where else to run. Most of the time it was the image of him moving toward her, one bullet already in his body, or him still on the ground with blood streaming out of his mouth. 

Sometimes though it was his body on hers, his cock inside her, his smoldering touch lighting her up. It was the intensity of his eyes meeting hers. It was the sound of her name on his tongue. Or sometimes even the growl of his voice as he called her "bitch". 

Tonight was one of those nights where she ached for him so badly that she felt like she might break in two. This was a complication that she had not anticipated. The nightmares she understood, relished even. She had done something & she had done it in a big way. She had taken a man's life; she had taken away a boy's father. And there were no amount of juice boxes, animal crackers, or hand me downs that could change that no matter how hard she tried. 

She spent the days chasing away the thoughts as best she could, giving her attention to her kids & keeping herself busy trying to figure out her business. The thoughts would start to creep in as the house settled, the kids in their beds & the lights out. The anxiety would build as she started her nightly routine. The clench of her jaw made brushing her teeth difficult. She would stare at her face in the mirror trying to recognize the person looking back at her. And then she would slide under the covers, staring up at the ceiling knowing that it was just the beginning. 

Sleep eluded her until the wee hours of the morning when she would finally drift off to sleep, exhaustion claiming her. The bright red numbers of the alarm clock were the only indication that any time had passed when she would wake up with a start, feeling as if she had just shut her eyes a minute ago. The images of her dreams would flit across her memory. 

She didn't have the right to miss him at all let alone miss him like this. 

Curling onto her side she gripped the collar of the sweater she wore, the fabric soft in her hand. She had worn it most nights since she had taken it from the storage unit. It was a toss up as to whether it brought her more comfort or pain, but she didn't care. She would torture herself with the memory of him just to feel alive. 

+++ 

Standing at the kitchen sink she thought she must have been seeing things. There was a figure in her backyard that didn't belong there, didn't belong anywhere. It had to be a figment of her imagination. 

She ignored the screaming kettle on the stove & slipped out the door. Her breath was shallow as she walked toward the picnic table. 

His eyes ran her up & down, taking in the black sweater with a familiar label that she wore with her pajama pants. 

"Taking my life wasn't enough, you had to take my clothes too?" 

Hearing his voice she froze in front of him, unable to move another inch even if she wanted to. Even if she needed to, which she very well might. 

"I didn't take your life apparently," she said. She was surprised to hear the anger in her voice edged with sarcasm. 

"You thought you did though." 

And she had lived with that every single day since. She had worried herself sick over the thought of Marcus growing up without a dad, thinking of all of the different ways his life would be fucked when they realized that Rio was never coming back. How long would it be before they knew? Would Marcus lash out, would he withdraw? The repercussions would have lasted a lifetime & she had been prepared to suffer for just as long. 

But he wasn't dead. The asshole had the audacity to disappear, to let her think she had murdered him. She wasn't sure what was worse, the remorse she had felt or the feeling building in her now. 

"Where have you been? Why did you wait this long?" 

She wondered if he had thought of her all this time the way she had thought of him. Did that night play over in his mind so often that he could feel the impact of each bullet? Was it their encounter in the bathroom that he couldn't get out of his head? Or had he revisited the moments when he had held a gun to her, wishing he had pulled the trigger? 

"What do I owe you, Elizabeth? An apology?" His stare was hard, cold. "Nah. I don't think I'm the one who owes anyone in this situation. I think that's you." 

"I'm sorry." There was an edge to her words. 

"I don't mean an apology. I mean an explanation." 

She felt her eye twitch. "What was I supposed to do, Rio? What would you have done if I hadn't used that gun?" They both knew that there would have been no end until shots were fired. 

"You weren't supposed to use it on me." 

"And you weren't supposed to put me in that situation! I had no choice." 

"Did you want me dead?" 

"I can't do this right now." She should have left him there & gone back inside. Something kept her standing there in front of him. 

"Yes you can. Ain't no other time for this. Did you want me dead?" 

"I can't believe you're even asking me that."

"Answer me." 

"Yes," she bit out. With everything else there had been relief. She couldn't deny it to herself; she couldn't deny it to him. 

There was an intensity to the silence. Their breath, short with fury, was the only sound against the night. 

Finally he spoke. "You look good in my shirt, ma." 

There was an undeniable rush through her body. He moved toward her & she'd be damned if he got that close to her & didn't do something about it. She remembered that day in his apartment, the way she left in a huff & could barely wait until she made it home to take care of what he started. There would be no satisfying her tonight if it wasn't his fingers, his mouth, his cock. 

Grabbing the hem of the shirt he pulled her, closing the distance between them. 

His grip was rough, unyielding. She wanted to feel his anger. She wanted to release her own. 

She pulled away to lead him into the house & into her bed. 

He was on her, in her, all over her. The weight of his body & the pressure of his hands crushed the panic that had been coursing through her. There was a desperation in the way he fucked her, like she was his only salvation. 

Each moment of anguish had been kindle & now they burned, flames licking the ceiling. 

+++

"I didn't want you dead," she told him. 

A tear streaked down her face. Fuck, she thought. The emotions tumbled out of her now that her anger had subsided. 

“Hey,” he whispered. He took her chin in his hand, raising it up so that her eyes met his. 

“I was scared,” she confessed, her lip trembling. 

“I know, Elizabeth.” He gathered her in his arms, tucking his chin over her head. “I know,” he said into her hair. 

He held her tight against him. She wasn't kidding herself anymore. She knew there was no promise that everything was going to be okay. She thought she could make peace with that if he was there beyond the fray. 

“We’re going to target practice tomorrow,” he told her. “You need to work on your aim.”

She might not have been much of a marksman with a gun, but she’d struck his heart without even trying. 

There would be no recovery, of that he was sure. So it was up to him to make sure she was better prepared if she ever needed to use a gun again. His life was full of risks, but losing her was one he wasn't willing to take. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays! Thank you to everyone who has read my fics, left kudos, & written comments. It means so much to me & I wanted to take a moment here during this season to express that.


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